urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Rohingya Muslim Migrants Caught in Limbo between India and Bangladesh

The
historic conflict between the Indian state of West Bengal and the nation of Bangladesh has enacted a new chapter over
concerns that many Rohingya Muslims have been illegally crossing into West
Bengal from Bangladesh.

Officials with the
Indian Border Security Force’s South Bengal Frontier (BSF) said they have
arrested more than one hundred illegal Rohingya immigrants this year, and most
of them likely came from Myanmar,
where they have faced a brutal campaign of repression from the authorities.

“We increased our
vigil on immigrants from Myanmar
since the end of last year after some Rohingya Muslims were arrested… last
November,” Santosh Mehra, the BSF’s inspector general said, according to
Hindustan Times.

“It was tough to
interact with them as they neither speak nor understand Hindi, Bengali or
English.”

Rohingya also do
not speak Urdu or any other Indian language. The Rohingya language is related
to the Chittagonian tongue, a dialect related to Bengali that is spoken in
southeastern Bangladesh,
but differs from standard Bengali.

“As we don't know
their [Rohingya] language, we have to get experts from universities or other
agencies to act as interpreters,” Mehra told the Times of India.

The stream of
illegal Rohingya immigrants has dramatically increased this year. Mehra added
that in 2011 only two Myanmar Rohingya nationals were arrested in West Bengal in 2011, and just six last year.

A senior BSF
official also told the Hindustan Times that the Bangladesh government has taken
the initiative to expel Rohingya migrants back to Myanmar, where the
overwhelmingly Buddhist majority does not want them. Myanmar
authorities regard them as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh,
while Dhaka rejects them as undocumented
foreigners.

Mehra cited this
catch-22 scenario by declaring that “we contact the Bangladesh
High Commission [in India]
after Bangladeshi migrants are held. [But] we cannot contact anyone after
Rohingyas are held since no country recognizes them.”

He told the Times
of India that “unlike illegal migrants from Bangladesh, it is difficult to send
them back across the border … There are certain United Nations guidelines that
have to be followed.”

Mehta also rejects
concerns by some Indian intelligence officers that the Rohingya migrants are
linked to terrorist groups, perhaps supported by entities in Bangladesh itself
of even in Pakistan.

Intelligence
agencies in New Delhi
believe that some Rohingyas have received arms training from Islamic militant
groups including the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani-based terror outfit, in
the Chittagong Hills district of Bangladesh.

Indian officials
suspect that LeT -- as well as militant organizations like Jamaat-ud-Dawah and
Jaish-e-Mohammad -- are using the plight of the unwanted Rohingya Muslims
migrants to stir up trouble between Bangladesh
and both of its neighbors,m Myanmar
and India.

An Indian
intelligence told Times of India that Bangladesh
has assured India that it
will look into the matter of training camps in the Chittagong.

“We have specific
information that LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawah created an outfit known as
Difa-e-Musalman Arakan [Burma],”
he said. “This outfit was assigned to tie-up with Islamic organizations in Myanmar and Bangladesh. There are several other
terror groups that are involved with the Rohingyas. While the Rohingyas are
receiving funds from Saudi Arabia,
weapons are apparently being sourced from Thailand.”

The Times reported
that over the past year-and-a-half some 10,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed
into India, residing in West Bengal, but also in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and
Uttar Pradesh. Three-thousand of them alone are living in the capital city of New Delhi. They exist in
a kind of limbo, with no rights of residency and little hope of ever attaining
citizenship.

But some Indians
have taken up their cause.

Nawab Zafar Jung, a
former vice-chancellor of JamiaMiliaIslamiaUniversity, in New Delhi, in tandem with leftist student
unions at Jawharlal Nehru University (JNU), are demanding the government grant
the Rohingya Muslims official refugee status.